


Time

by aurora_australis



Category: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Movie Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_australis/pseuds/aurora_australis
Summary: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!!!SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!!!SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!!!---------------------Time is a funny old thing.That’s what her mother used to say, whenever Phryne complained about long church services, or short afternoons, or interminable lunches at Aunt Prudence’s. “Time is a funny old thing, my darling. Never keeps the same pace for anything.” And Phryne had rolled her eyes and nodded and resumed squirming in her seat.She wished her mother was here now.
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 37
Kudos: 194





	Time

Time is a funny old thing. 

That’s what her mother used to say, whenever Phryne complained about long church services, or short afternoons, or interminable lunches at Aunt Prudence’s. “Time is a funny old thing, my darling. Never keeps the same pace for anything.” And Phryne had rolled her eyes and nodded and resumed squirming in her seat. 

She wished her mother was here now. 

Seven days ago, on an otherwise uneventful Monday, she’d received word that Jack’s plane had crashed off the coast of Australia via a telegram from the war office.

_No survivors. Deepest condolences._

She had thrown it in the bin.

It was probably the detective in her: destroy the evidence, cover-up the crime.

Her Inspector wouldn’t have liked that. 

That had been a week ago. And her mother had been right, time _was_ a funny old thing; it felt so much longer. 

She didn’t register much after that. Not specific details anyway. Mr. Butler kept her fed, Dot and Jane and Mac took shifts keeping her company. A number of other friends stopped by, told her she’d be alright.

And of course she would. She was Phryne Goddamn Fisher, and he might have been the love of her life, but he wasn’t her whole life and he never had been.

But it _hurt_.

It hurt so much, which she expected, but also ceaselessly, which she did not.

Because despite words meant to comfort — “every day gets a little easier” “you’ll feel better eventually” — eventually never came.

Time just seemed to stop.

Or, at least that’s the way it felt. Every day was a series of church services, a litany of lunches with her aunt. It was nothing but present, always present, a present without Jack. 

Phryne had experienced much loss in her life, but she hadn’t experienced a loss like this since she was a child, and childhood time has its own peculiarities separate from grief.

It wasn’t that she’d never known time to fly when she was having fun, or stall when she wasn’t. It was that there was always an equilibrium to those shifts; time would slow down, something would attract her attention, she’d blink and an hour would have passed without her notice. 

She noticed every moment now. Felt every moment. Hurt every moment.

Every moment for six days. And she was so tired. Grief really was exhausting. 

And then, on the seventh day, he just… came home. Blissfully unaware of the whole thing.

Apparently, he’d never been aboard the plane at all. There had been a last minute change in his travel itinerary that some sergeant hadn’t logged correctly. 

She suspects that young man will be a private by morning. 

It is a miracle, an analogy only made more apropos by the number of days he was gone. 

He is confused, of course, when she stumbles upon seeing him, even more so when Dot screams. Eventually the whole story comes out and a celebratory dinner is held. It all passes in a blur. 

And once the wine is gone, and the whisky is gone, and the guests are gone, they retire for the evening. They make love slowly, kindly, with exquisite care, and she never takes her eyes off of him, not even when he settles in beside her for the night and shuts his own. And when she thinks him asleep, she keeps them open still and stares up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into the dark, “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” he asks.

Not asleep after all then. 

Phryne takes a deep breath; she has never been a coward. “When you… the memorial service. I knew, of course, intellectually, but I didn’t _know_.”

“The memorial service?” He seems confused again. Poor man. There is a lot of that going around.

“In London,” she explains.

“Oh,” he says, finally connecting the dots. “Phryne, that was... years ago. What made you think of it? Besides the obvious I suppose, though it feels like we’ve both had more than a few close calls over the years.”

She is quiet for just a moment. “I was writing your eulogy,” she admits quietly.

“Oh,” he repeats, and she feels him tense under her hands. 

“When I thought you had died, Jack, I found it…” She struggles to find the words.

“Unbearable?” he offers.

“Unending,” she corrects. “There was no reprieve, Jack. Every moment hurt. And it was only…. how did you stand it? For six weeks?”

“Well I didn’t handle it well, as you may remember. I believe I yelled at you for being alive.”

“Yes, well neither of us were at our best that day, were we?”

“No, we were not. Which is why I don’t like to think about it too much.”

“Me either. But this week has rather brought it all up again. And for what it’s worth, I _am_ sorry.” She huffs. “I’m not sure what I would have done to you tonight if you’d asked if this was a new hat.” 

“Well who can keep up with your millinery acquisitions, Phryne?”

She rolls her eyes and bites her lip and pauses before asking the question on her mind. “Can I ask why you…” 

She trails off but he understands.

“Why I reacted so strongly?”

She rolls her eyes again. “That’s one word for it.”

He sighs as he collects his thoughts. “It was… it was as you say. I grieved for six weeks, Phryne. And I felt that grief like a crushing weight. So much that eventually I just felt... numb, like, like when you fall asleep on your arm. And then all of the sudden you were alive again and that weight was _gone_. And all that feeling came rushing back at once — the good and the bad — and it was overwhelming and it _hurt_. So I lashed out. And I’m so sorry, Phryne. I should have… I should have given in to the joy instead. I should have pulled you into my arms and thanked god for the second chance.”

“That would have been nicer,” she agrees. “Do you think… could you do that now?” she whispers, tears pooling in her eyes for the first time since he’d returned. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment, just pulls her close and holds her tight.

She remembers the last time. Remembers being confused and wrong-footed and him being so angry and her responding utterly flippantly, the only way she felt she could with so little information and so much expectation. She remembers him leaving and not realizing until he was gone that he meant it. 

She remembers regretting her words the moment she catches up to them.

She remembers wondering if he is really done with her.

She remembers it all.

She much prefers the hug. 

Eventually her tears stop and he loosens his grip, just enough to stroke her back.

“Do you still have it?” she asks, curious again. Curious always, actually — she is Phryne Goddamn Fisher after all.

“Have what?”

“My eulogy. I seem to recall you saying you would keep it for the appropriate day.”

He tilts his head to shoot her a disapproving look. “No. As it happens I threw it in the Thames.” He pulls his head back, settling once again on his pillow. “But I wouldn’t use that one anyway — I was writing about an entirely different woman and an entirely different relationship. I’ve had so much more with you since then.” He pauses a moment. “And I thank god every day for the second chance.”

She smiles against his chest, feels his even strokes against her skin.

“Do you remember any of it?” she asks, not sure herself why she’s suddenly so curious, except for the obvious of course.

He is quiet, but he doesn’t say no. Then he clears his throat.

“The heavens themselves may blaze forth the death of princes, but, for me, nothing ever blazed brighter than Phryne Fisher. And in my experience she never needed anyone to announce her.”

He pulls her a little closer. “That part is still true.”

She takes in a shaky breath — this man — and smiles. “Shakespeare. Of course.”

“Of course,” he agrees. “I brought my collected works with me on the boat. Didn’t have room for pajamas because of it.”

“Caesar though?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “You couldn’t have gone with someone who _wasn’t_ a dictator?” He shakes his head and kisses her on her still wrinkled nose.

They are quiet then, for a little while, before he interrupts the silence with a curious question of his own.

“What… what about mine?”

“What about your what?”

“What about my eulogy. Can I hear any of it?”

She closes her eyes and nods; she’s had this part memorized for a week.

> _“Unable are the Loved to die_
> 
> _For Love is Immortality.”_

He swallows. “Emily Dickinson,” he notes with obvious approval. “Elegant.”

“Indeed.” She fiddles with the hem of the doona. “You are, you know. Loved.”

He holds her tighter still. “I do know. As are you. I once wrote five full minutes on the subject.”

She slowly turns her head to look at him. Sits up straight. Meets his eye.

“Five minutes? That’s all? I was up to fifteen, and I wasn’t even close to done.”

He momentarily flounders, then offers her a self-deprecating smile. 

“Is that a new hat?”

She huffs and flounces back down to the bed, an irritation that lasts for exactly as long as it takes him to cover her body with his own and apologize. 

Time really is a funny old thing.

**Author's Note:**

> “The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” is from Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_.


End file.
